Tough Rules

It's final. This morning, I read from 3P's announcement that it had rolled out the new ruling on the posting of paid posts. All 3P paid posts must be sandwiched by 2 non-paid posts, i.e. - one before and one after the 3P post. As well, all paid posts by other sponsors must also be followed by a non-paid interim post.

As if this is not enough, this morning one of my favorite advertisers tightened their policy too. Previously posties are free to accept offers from all the categories but effective today, we are only entitled to a miserable 5 categories and are only allowed to change the category once every 30 days. So eventhough I am entitled to a max of 4o ops per month, with this new ruling, I guess I won't even have 10 per month.

Earning money through sponsored posts ain't easy now.

Monetize Your Blog With Advertlets

Calling out to all Malaysian and Singaporean bloggers. Here's a chance for you to earn more money from blogging. Advertlets.com is now offering 100 bloggers (Malaysian and Singaporean)a RM20 (for Malaysians) or SGD10 (for Singaporeans) sponsored post opportunity. I have signed up with Advertlets for almost 3 months and so far I have RM50+ in my account. With this blogvertorial, I would have earned another RM20 in my Advertlets account. Also, with each advertisement placed in my blog by advertisers, I get to earn too. When the amount in my account reaches RM100, I can request for my earnings to paid to me via a cheque - no need to go through Paypal - yipee!

So hurry up, quick sign up with “Advertlets.com - Blog Advertising in Asia!”. Though they are new, but they are surely progressing very well. I really look forward to seeing more sponsored post opportunities in Advertlets.

Homemade Maki

My mil made Maki 2 weeks ago. It's actually quite simple and all the ingredients used are healthy and wholesome stuff. This is also a suitable food for toddlers.

This is what you'll need :

Japanese rice
Chicken breast - cut them into cubes
Carrots - cut them into cubes
3 eggs
Japanese mayonaise (you can omit this if you're feeding a toddler)
Japanese cucumber
Seaweed - use good quality ones so that they are crispy and crunchy and easy to bite on when the Maki is ready.
Japanese bamboo mat for making sushi
Crab sticks, Japanese pickles, Unagi (eel), Fish roe (all optional)
Salt

Method :

First, cook some Japanese rice. Then,

Pan-fry the eggs and cut the Japanese cucumbers into strips.


Steam the chicken and carrot cubes with a little salt and pepper. Once ready, add them into the cooked rice and mix well.

Place the mixture of rice, chicken and carrots, together with the strips of eggs and cucumber onto the seaweed on top of the Jap bamboo mat. Squeeze in some Japanese mayonaise.


Using Japanese mayonaise gives the Maki a better taste, as compared to using regular mayo as Jap mayo is creamier and tastier.

Rolling the Maki must be done right, otherwise the fillings will be loose and slip out from the seaweed.


Once the Maki is rolled up, cut it into bite sizes.



The bite size Maki ready to be served.

They Love Swimming

Alycia and Sherilyn love swimming very much. They have had so much fun playing in the oversize swimming pool with daddy at Hilton Sentral when we stayed there 2 weeks back. When my sil returned to Hong Kong, she had left behind the ELC kids' float for the gals. They didn't seem to get bored playing with the float the whole day and imagined they were swimming in the pool like this :

Homemade Chicken Balls

I made chicken balls for dinner yesterday. As Alycia and Sherilyn love meehoon very much, we had meehoon with ABC soup, chicken balls and vegetables for dinner yesterday. It's another very simple and nutritious meal which kids will love.

Method of making the chicken balls :

Blend chicken breast

Add a dash of sesame seed oil, a little corn flour, salt and pepper to the blended chicken meat and mix well.

Form chicken meat into balls and boil in water. Remove and strain the balls when you see the balls floating in the water.

Make more so that you can deep freeze the balls for future use.

Alycia Wants Her Diaper!

For the past 2 days, Alycia demanded to have her diapers worn during the afternoon naptime. Since the 'accident' a few days ago where she wet the mattress, she seems to have a phobia of not wearing diapers, especially now that we have a brand new mattress as she's concerned that she might accidentally pee on the new mattress. I tried to convince her that it's ok to be diaper-free as mummy will be waking her up to bring her to the potty but she insisted on wearing her diaper. This afternoon, she brought her diaper out from the drawer, removed her shorts and begged me to put it on for her! Oh dear, why is she regressing? Is it because of the new mattress or she hates to be woken up to pee on the potty? Maybe tomorrow I should try to stealthily remove the diapers after she has drifted to sleep and then wake her up to pee. Good idea?

Sherilyn Longs To Go To Pre-School

Poor Sherilyn. She really longs to go to pre-school. This morning as I was preparing Alycia for school, Sherilyn who was seated on her potty kept saying "i want to go to school". The moment daddy opened the door to bring Alycia out, she sprang up from her potty and said "FINISH" (meaning finished her business) and ran to the bathroom to be washed up. She wanted to follow Alycia to school! As my maid was washing her up and putting her clothes on, she kept repeating "i want to go to school" and was on the verge of crying. So we all waited for her and daddy brought her along to the car for the short 1 minute's drive to the school. When she came home, she repeated non-stop "i want to go to school, where is Alycia mummy? I don't want Alycia to go to school. Go with me". Poor girl. I think she misses her sister terribly and wants to follow her che che to school too. She then threw herself on the cold hard floor, sucked her thumb and her eyes were wet. She looked so terribly pathetic and my heart was wrenched. Now, I'm really considering sending Sherilyn to pre-school next year.

Monday Morning

It's 6:55am now and the rain is still tick tick tock tock pattering outside, since 4am. I wonder if it's going to stop so that I can go for my morning stroll and get my breakfast and newspapers. I hope Alycia will have no problem waking up later for school as she had slept late last night. I actually got the gals ready for bed by 10pm but when daddy came back, as usual, the gals started to act up, especially Alycia and demanded that daddy does 'bom bom cha', a.k.a. walt dancing with them. Since daddy was stinky and sweaty as he had returned from a basketball game, he had to take his shower but Alycia was whining, crying and knocking on the bathroom door away. I hate such moments before bedtime. I was too sleepy and just couldn't force my eyes to open and went to sleep whilst daddy had to placate Alycia from inside the bathroom. Sherilyn was quite good and slept with me but later when daddy got out from the bathroom, she was distracted and jumped out from bed and joined in the craze with Alycia to bom bom cha with daddy. I think they slept at 11ish pm. Hopefully Alycia will not act up later when I drag her out from bed.

Really Nice Invites

Alycia’s 4th birthday is a few months away but I’m already planning ahead her birthday celebration. What I have in mind is to throw her a birthday party and invite all her pre-school classmates to our house. I saw some very lovely birthday invites at Invitations By You and Alycia immediately fell in love with the one below though all the cards are very well designed. You really should check out this website at iby.com. Here, you can custom make your invitations for all occasions from birthdays to housewarming, graduation announcements, baby and birth announcements, wedding and engagement to just about any occasions that you are going to have at very affordable prices too.


Personal custom birthday invite.

Personal custom graduation announcement.

How We Spent Our Sunday

Today, my mil returned to Hong Kong. Hubby spent the whole morning helping her pack her things and plastic seal some of the local food that she had bought this morning to bring back to Hong Kong. All of us had wantan noodles with roasted char siew and roasted chicken for brunch. After my hubby left the house with mil to the airport, I was so sleepy that I slept on the couch. My 2 gals followed suit with Alycia sleeping on the cold hard floor and Sherilyn sharing the couch with me. We only napped for around 20 minutes. As the gals were hungry, we ate some crackers whilst waiting for daddy to come home to bring us out to Babyland to get some baby stuff. After shopping at Babyland, Alycia wanted to pee, so daddy brought us to Secret Recipe just so she can use the loo. We bought 2 slices of cakes, one healthy High Fibre Cheese Cake and one Classic Cheese Cake. I then wanted to get some buns for Alycia to bring to school tomorrow, so we stopped at Breads 2 Brag at Sri Hartamas but most of the buns were sold off. So I just bought 3 mini hotdog buns and ate in the car. As daddy was feeling hungry, we went to Brian's Pizza at Sri Hartamas and ordered a thin crust pizza, an Oleo Spaghetti, a beef Bolognaise Spaghetti, a chicken chop and a cup of strawberry yoghurt ice-cream for dessert. Before we headed home, I dropped by the bakery near our house and bought a loaf of walnut bread and 2 croissants for Alycia to bring to school tomorrow. As we are all still feeling full, I shall be making something light for dinner - fried egg with cheese sandwich. What a day of non-stop eating we've had.

Catering and Restaurant Supplies

In case some of you do not know yet, my hubby is a caterer. Apart from catering food of all varieties for functions of all kinds from private to corporate, he also provides rental services of catering and banquet equipment. Business lately has been pretty good and he has to purchase more catering supplies to meet the demand of his clients from tablecloth to table skirting, stainless steel flatware, glassware to chinaware. If you are also in the food catering or restaurant business, you really have to check out this great website called Maine Supply Company that supplies an extensive range of supplies ranging from Chinaware to flatware, glassware, melamine dishes, chafers, tablecloth, napkins and much more at the link provided. And oh yes, if you or your company have an upcoming function and need catering or rental of catering equipment, please do let me know and I'll inform my hubby.

Test From God

I had a real test from God recently. There are certain ads that I will not accept to write no matter the amount offered. Over the last 2 weeks, 2 ads on the subject matter that I will not encourage people to get involved in were persistenly being offered to me. The ads first appeared in my account of the first advertiser for almost 1 week at a price that's slightly higher than the usual amount. Everday as I checked for offers, this particular adv kept staring at me, as if inviting me to accept it. 2 days ago, it appeared again in another advertiser's account of mine at an even higher amount. Both times, I didn't accept the offer. This morning, it appeared again in the third advertiser's account of mine at a price that's even much higher at USD12 for only 50 words. I was so tempted to accept the offer. I clicked on the opp to have a look at the description and wanted to click on the reserve tab but my strong mind and spirit stopped me from doing so. The opp was later taken up. And I think God rewarded me for passing his test with a long list of assignments from my favorite advertiser.

Sherilyn Can Write

This morning, I gave Sherilyn a letter tracing workbook and taught her to write. At first, she just squiggled and kept scribbling the letter 'O' on the pages. I held her hand and guided her to write a few letters but she didn't want me to help her. She wanted to show off her independence and kept scribbling randomly on the pages when she finally settled on the page with the letter 'E'. I then attempted to hold her hand again and guided her to write the letter 'E'. After a few times guiding her, she tried to trace on the dotted lines on her own. The first few attempts were shaky and crooked but after a few tries, she finally managed to grip tightly on the color pencil and traced on the dotted lines quite well. After a few minutes trying, the tracing became better and straighter and she traced almost half the page of the letter 'E'. I was so happy and praised her profusely. She was grinning and clapping her hands away as she finished tracing each letter. Later in the evening, when Sherilyn was doodling on her Doodle Pro, I asked her to write the letter 'E'. She knew the strokes and got almost all the strokes right but missed out the last stroke on the bottom of the letter 'E', though she was trying hard to write it. I am so proud of her little achievement.

I Need A New Home Office Furniture

Apart from refurbishing my room, I really need to do something about my home office. Right now, I only have a small computer desk and all my books, papers, documents and stationery are cluttered everywhere. I just saw something that I really like from the internet. It’s a 4-piece collection of beautiful and smart home office furniture from Bush furniture (picture below). If I get this home office furniture set, I can organize my things better. With such a conducive place to work, I can even think better and write better quality posts.

Alycia's Pre-School

Yesterday morning I walked Alycia to school, together with Sherilyn and my maid so that the gals can get some exercise and a dose of Vitamin D from the morning sun. I also wanted to speak to Alycia's teachers to probe why she is acting so strangely with all the puking in the morning and defiance when it comes to homework. To my surprise, her teachers told me that Alycia is coping very well in class. She is enthusiastic when it comes to writing and writes well, is always the first few to finish her work and proudly passes her work to her teacher. When asked how her social skills are, the teachers told me that Alycia is a little quiet but nevertheless still talks to her classmates and asks the teachers questions. I was so happy when I heard the remarks but why is she so defiant at home and pukes in the morning after her milk? Yesterday morning, I even made her lesser milk for fear of her puking again and didn't even brush her teeth as she showed signs of wanting to puke after her milk. When I gave her a spoonful of her favorite fried vegetarian meehoon, she even spat it out. Maybe she's still feeling a little nervous going to school. And of yes, I almost forgot. When I was about to leave the school with Sherilyn and my maid, Alycia started to cry!

I Need To Refurbish My Bedroom

I’ve been wanting to refurbish my bedroom for a long time. First, I need to get rid of the curtains and replace them with blinds as I’d mentioned in my earlier post that they pose a great hazard to my 2 rascals who love to twirl themselves round the curtains. Next I need to do some bedroom furniture shopping. Hubby has long wanted to get a nice king-size bed with a head board as our current bed doesn’t have a head board and our 2 gals always bump their heads on the wall. As for me, I really want to get myself a nice dressing table and an elegant closet to replace the current archaic looking built-in cabinets that have been in our bedroom for more than 20 years. I just hate that creaking sound of the door each time I open and shut that dinosaur cabinet!

They Love Being With Mah Mah

The gals love being with their mah mah (paternal grandma) because only mah mah will be so lenient with them with food. Since mah mah loves eating, she buys new food home for the gals to eat almost everyday. Several days ago, mah mah bought a packet of dried pork meat home. As she was cutting the dried meat into smaller pieces to be stored into a tupperware, the gals crowded round her and waited to be fed with the meat. With mah mah at home, the gals will never go hungry as there are tidbits and snacks in the house all the time.

Instill the Love For Books In Your Child

What’s the easiest, fastest and cheapest way of increasing your knowledge and widening your horizons? It has got to be reading – reading all kinds of materials from reference books to text books, magazines, novels, newspapers, internet and the list goes. I’ve always loved reading and I strongly encourage my 2 gals to read. I used to make them books myself but now that I don’t have the time to make them anymore, I buy them books, both from the local bookstores and online. These days, you can get discount books from many fantastic online book stores. One of the best gifts you can give your kids is to instill the love for reading in them. Start reading to your kids even when they are infants and they will surely grow up to love books, just like my 2 gals.

MIL Going Back To Hong Kong

My mil will be going back to Hong Kong tomorrow. I hope the gals will take it well, especially Alycia who has grown so attached to her mah mah over the last 3 weeks. Each morning when Alycia wakes up, the first thing that she'll ask is "where is mah mah?" Starting from Monday, mah mah will not be here anymore. Alycia also tends to stick to my mother, her granny every time we go back to Ipoh. Each time we had to return to KL, she will start to whine and say "i don't want to go back to KL. I stay here with granny" and will cry big time when it's time to get into the car. Hopefully tomorrow she will not cry when her mah mah gets into the car.

Diaper-Free Accident

It has been more than 2 weeks since Alycia has been off diapers during her daytime nap and so far, she's been good and has not wet the mattress. Yesterday was the first accident. I normally wake her up 1 hour into her nap to bring her to the potty that's placed next to the mattress on the floor. However, yesterday I got a shock when I touched the mattress and it was soaked! And she had slept out of the plastic mat placed beneath her. The mattress was totally drenched with her pee and since the mattress has been soiled with pee and puke several times already, I threw the mattress away. Today, she has to sleep on my mil's Japanese Tatami mat and Sherilyn has to sleep on the baby-size mattress from the playpen. I better go and check Alycia and bring her to the potty now. I have no more spare mattresses!